


Try Harder

by magsforya



Category: Glee RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Depression, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-11
Updated: 2017-05-11
Packaged: 2018-10-30 19:20:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10883280
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magsforya/pseuds/magsforya
Summary: For six months Chris and Darren have played this cat-and-mouse game of being just on the brink of a relationship, but never taking the next step. Chris is tired of it; he wants more from Darren, but sometimes he feels like Darren isn’t willing to give it.





	Try Harder

**Author's Note:**

> It's been a bit since I've written CC, so I hope you all enjoy it! I promise there is a happy ending.
> 
> Also, if you like it, you can reblog it on [Tumblr](http://magsforya.tumblr.com/post/160564068919/try-harder).

                “So,” Chris starts, as he finishes climbing up the steep hill to finally reach Darren, who is currently lying on his back on the ground in the cool summer night. “When you said you were having an emotional breakdown and climbed a mountain to get away from everything, I didn’t actually think you were serious.”

                Chris plops down on the ground, sitting on his butt and grinning lightly at Darren.

                Darren’s lying with his arms under his head, staring at the sky above. He doesn’t say anything.

                “Everything okay?” Chris asks.

                Darren still doesn’t respond, but Chris doesn’t push him.

                He doesn’t really understand Darren. He’s tried to. He’s tried _so hard_ , but there’s a part of Darren that Chris has never been able to comprehend. This aspect of Darren’s personality that Chris thinks Darren might not even understand.

                Sometimes Darren does this. He gets overwhelmed with life and does _this_ : runs away—literally. Sometimes it’s getting in his car and just driving far away. Sometimes it’s checking himself into a hotel down the street and burrowing himself under the covers and not leaving for a few days. Tonight it’s climbing to the top of an LA mountain at eleven at night and staring at the sky forlornly.

                Chris doesn’t know what to do when Darren gets like this. Normally he doesn’t do anything because Darren doesn’t let him. He’ll disappear for a few days, ignore all of Chris’ texts and phone calls, and when he’s feeling better he’ll come around and apologize to Chris and then pretend like nothing ever happened.

                Sometimes he calls. Chris almost always answers, and if Darren asks Chris to come, Chris will drop everything and run.

                His friends don’t really understand Chris’ relationship with Darren. They’re not _together_ , but Chris wants to be. He’s mentioned it to Darren before, but Darren mostly bucks it off smoothly, diverting the conversation in an all too frustrating way for Chris. And his friends know that.

                His best friend Ashley told Chris that she’s worried, because whenever Darren tells Chris to jump, he doesn’t even ask “how high?” He just does it. He jumps, and he doesn’t stop until Darren waves him off.

                “You’ll do anything for him,” Ashley has said before. “Cancel plans, follow him anywhere, take off of work to be with him. But he doesn’t do any of that for you.”

                Chris argues her point. He tells her all of the things that Darren has done for him, done _with_ him. That he doesn’t get in these _moods_ that Darren does, so he doesn’t need Darren to drop everything to be with him.

                Ashley will always push back a little, saying that Chris will cancel plans with other friends just to hang out with Darren even when he’s in a good mood. Even when Darren doesn’t _need_ Chris’ emotional support.

                She’s right. Chris knows this. But it’s a hard pill to swallow.

                In the end Ashley always backs off, and it’s because she’s at just as much of a loss as Chris is. Because Darren’s a nice guy. He’s a great guy. He’s fun, he’s sweet, he does so much for Chris. He makes Chris feel so special. And Chris likes him. He’s kind to Chris’ friends, takes Chris’ work as an aspiring writer seriously, not making fun of him for wanting to write children’s literature despite how hard it’s been thus far. Darren is _fun_ , and kind, and giving.

                But then sometimes he disappears for a few days. Sometimes he ignores Chris. Sometimes he goes on dates with women and Chris has to find out through the grapevine or through strangely worded texts from Darren. Sometimes he calls Chris and says he needs him, makes Chris leave work early or get out of bed at midnight to drive across town, or break into a closed park at eleven at night to climb a mountain when he has to be awake at six in the morning the next day for work. Then, when Chris gets to Darren, Darren will ignore him.

                Or at least that’s what Ashley says. Chris sees it as so much _more_.

                “Sometimes just having you there is good enough,” Darren said once.

                They don’t talk about _this_. This _thing_ that happens with Darren. They’ve been playing this strange cat-and-mouse game—this on-and-off-again best friends versus casual fuck buddies—for about six months now. About a month and a half ago Chris called it quits. He backed out—told Darren he couldn’t keep doing this anymore.

                “I can’t keep being with someone who practically acts like we’re in a relationship one day, and then a week later ignores me for four days before demanding that I come drive three fucking hours to sit next to you in a dank motel while you ignore me and lay in the fetal position! I can’t be with someone who sometimes acts like he doesn’t want to be with me.”

                And he left, and they didn’t talk for a week. And then Darren came knocking at Chris’ door _promising_ to change.

                It was the only time they ever talked about what happens with Darren.

                “Sometimes just having you there is good enough.”

                He told Ashley what happened, swearing her to secrecy and leaving a lot of the more confusing details out of his retelling.

                “But is it enough for you?” she had asked.

                “What do you mean?”

                “He said that having you there is enough for him, even if you don’t ever talk or whatever. Just having you come save him or something is enough. But is it enough for _you_? Sitting next to him while he crawls into this depression and ignores your existence except for whatever help you can give him. Is that enough?”

                Chris didn’t answer her, just chewed the thought around in his head.

                It’s not enough, though. He knows that.

                After talking with Ashley, he went back to Darren.

                “It’s not enough for me,” he said, parroting Ashley’s words. “It’s not enough for me to sit next to you while you hold all these feelings inside of you. Do you know how pathetic and worthless I feel when you beg for me to come help you, and then ignore me the entire time I’m there? I never know what’s going through your head.”

                “I promise,” Darren had replied, “I’ll try to do better. _Please_ don’t leave me.”

                So Chris didn’t, and they went back to their weird game of sometimes being best friends on the verge of a relationship, and other times being fuck buddies who only call each other up for a quick orgasm.

                Chris wants more in life. He wants more from Darren.

                He’s never heard Darren utter the word _depression_. He’s never brought it up to him, either. He never even thought of depression as a possibility until Ashley mentioned it. He always thought that this was some weird quirk of Darren’s. Just like when Chris is in a bad mood how he likes to lock himself in his room and pretend other people don’t exist while he eats junk food and watches Netflix in bed all day.

                But maybe, he thinks, this is more than a quirk of Darren’s.

                It’s the first time Darren’s done _this_ —whatever _this_ is—since they had their big fight all those weeks ago.

                He called Chris up an hour ago, quiet and almost brainless, like he couldn’t focus enough on the words he wanted to say and was spacing out.

                “I could use you,” he said.

                “Okay,” Chris replied. “Where are you?”

                “On top of some mountain,” Darren said.

                “Huh?”

                Darren dropped a pin on his iPhone and sent his location to Chris.

                “I guess I’ll see you soon,” Chris said before hanging up.

                Now he’s sitting next to Darren, who is lying on the cold, hard ground and practically pretending that Chris isn’t even there. And all that goes through Chris’ mind is, _why do I even come anymore?_

                The longer he sits here the longer he thinks that Ashley is right, that there is seriously something wrong with Darren. Something that Chris can’t help with. But he doesn’t know what will. Chris will admit that in the areas of mental health, he’s not so knowledgeable. The struggles he’s had in the past have all been situational, and he had to learn alone how to cope with his bouts of anxiety.

                He wishes he knew how to cope with Darren’s.

                After thirty minutes of sitting in complete silence, Chris stands up.

                “I can’t do this,” he says, mustering up every word of concern Ashley has ever had for him. Concern that he can finally admit that he has for himself. “I _can’t_ Darren. I can’t be your puppet, or—or—or your _pet_ , that just comes whenever he’s called.”

                Darren is still lying on the ground, looking like the picture of comfort and relaxation, if not for the stress etched onto his face.

                “Great,” Chris replies, pissed. “Not even going to say anything. You promised me you’d _try_.”

                “I am trying,” Darren replies quietly.

                “It doesn’t look like it,” Chris says, still standing and looking down at Darren.

                “What does trying look like?” Darren asks, his voice calm, but sounding so, _so_ tired.

                “It looks like actually opening up and _talking_ to me,” Chris says.

                “That’s what success looks like,” Darren says.

                “What?” Chris asks, sitting back down pretzel style. Because if Darren is finally talking then Chris will stay there and listen.

                “Me talking, that’s me being successful in opening up. I’m _trying_ to do that, but I can’t.”

                “Why?” Chris asks.

                Darren shrugs.

                “That’s not good enough,” Chris replies. “Try something else.”

                “I don’t have the words. Or when I do have the words, I don’t want to say them out loud.”

                “Why though?”

                Darren doesn’t look at Chris, and his eyes water a bit in the moonlight.

                “Because I’m afraid you’ll leave if you knew what was really going on in my head.”

                “Why would I leave you?”

                Darren sighs loudly. “You’re asking so many questions,” he says, though it’s not with anger.

                “Because I don’t understand,” Chris says softly. “I just want to understand.”

                “There’s this part of me that I hate so much, and I can control it a lot, but sometimes I can’t, and it just takes over. And you get so _angry_ at me because of it, but I can’t control it. And I’m afraid that if I like, _talk_ about it, then you’ll realize that I’m too much trouble than I’m worth.”

                Chris reaches out and grabs Darren’s hand, forcing Darren to take his hands out from behind his head. He sits up, but still doesn’t face Chris head on, instead sitting pretzel style with Chris on his left side looking at him.

                “This is literally all I want, okay? I just want to be able to talk to you when you’re going through this. Because I don’t understand it, but I want to,” Chris says, trying his best to articulate his emotions.

                “You want a lot, and I don’t know if I can give it to you,” Darren says.

                “How is this a lot? How is wanting to talk to you a lot?”

                “Not that,” Darren says. “Or, yes to that, because sometimes that’s hard. But…like, _more_ , between us. You want a relationship and monogamy and, and—I want that, too. But I sometimes don’t think I can give it to you.”

                “You can’t give me monogamy?” Chris asks, trying to understand. He knows that Darren has been in exclusive relationships in the past.

                “Not that. It’s not that. It’s…when I’m with you, I’m the happiest I could ever be. But I have all of these external pressures, and they freak me out. I’m afraid that if I give in and we get together for real, that something will tear us apart. Something I can’t control.”

                “Something is already tearing us apart, though, Dare,” Chris says. “And it’s something you _can_ control.”

                “I can’t, though,” Darren says with force, ripping his hand out of Chris’. “I can’t control this, Chris. Don’t you think I would if I could?”

                Chris takes an unsteady breath.

                “You know I really like you, right?” Chris asks.

                Darren nods. “I like you, too.”

                “I know,” Chris says. “I do. But sometimes I don’t feel it. Because sometimes you push me out of your life. Sometimes I feel like we’re best fucking friends and that’s it—nothing more than that. But then a week later I feel like a booty call.”

                Darren drops his head in his hands, palming at his eyes and sniffling.

                “I don’t want to make you feel like that,” he says.

                “It’s hard to not feel like that when every other month you’re going on dates with women,” Chris remarks, because it’s a sore spot for him. And if Darren is opening up, then Chris feels like maybe he should, too.

                “I know, I—I know. I don’t know why I do that,” Darren says.

                “Yes you do,” Chris pushes, because he knows why Darren does it, and he doesn’t want to let Darren off the hook that easily.

                “I can stop,” Darren suggests, looking at Chris.

                “Don’t promise me something you can’t deliver on. It’s not…this isn’t an ultimatum, Darren. But please don’t promise me something that you won’t follow through with.”

                “I will. I swear. I don’t even—I don’t even like doing it. It’s just…I feel like I have to. It’s one of those—”

                “External pressures?” Chris interrupts, feeling like maybe he’s finally able to piece together what is going on in Darren’s head.

                Darren nods. “Yeah,” he says. “But I think that’s one I can handle.”

                Chris knows that Darren feels an immense amount of pressure to succeed in his chosen careers of acting and music. He knows that the small successes Darren has had are clouded by this fear that this will be it, that there will be nothing more for him. He’s constantly on the move trying to get more roles and more concert gigs. He’s so afraid to lose everything he’s worked for, that when people suggest he hang out with certain female actors to boost his visibility, it’s hard for Darren to say no.

                Darren’s never been able to truly vocalize his sexuality, a fact that has at times worried Chris. He sometimes feels like Darren is dragging him back into the closet, that their relationship can only exist behind closed doors and with hushed whispers. He knows that sexuality and labels is something Darren is struggling with, because it’s one of the few things that he has been rather open about with Chris. He knows that Darren is afraid that coming out could be career suicide, because he doesn’t know what he’d come out as. He’s said before that he feels like the LGBTQ community wouldn’t accept him, but he also doesn’t feel like he fits within the confines of heterosexuality, so he doesn’t know where his default is.

                “You know I’d never like…force you to come out as anything, right?” Chris asks.

                “I know,” Darren responds. “But I can…I will stop it, with the women and the dates. Not for you, okay? But for me. I need to stop doing that for myself.”

                Chris doesn’t say anything, just waits and watches Darren.

                “So where do we go from here?” Darren asks.

                “I have work in the morning, so I have to go home—”

                “I meant between _us_ ,” Darren interrupts.

                “I know,” Chris says. “I was getting there. I have work in the morning, so I have to go home eventually. But I’d like it if you would come with me, and after work we can talk some more.”

                Darren nods his assent. “Okay, yeah.”

                Chris stands up and grabs Darren’s hand, interlacing their fingers.

                “You feeling a little better?” he asks Darren quietly, taking a step forward so they are completely in each other’s spaces.

                “I don’t know,” Darren says. “I feel…rawer.”

                Chris slowly leans in and kisses Darren’s cheek.

                “I’m sorry I’m such a demanding asshole,” he whispers to Darren.

                “I’m sorry I’m sometimes so…emotionally closed off.”

                “We can work through it,” Chris promises.

                “I think I need therapy,” Darren says.

                Chris kisses Darren again, this time on the corner of his mouth.

                “There’s nothing wrong with therapy,” he replies.

                Darren nods noncommittally, like it’s just a habit and there’s no meaning behind it.

                “Come on,” Chris says. “Let’s go home.”

                He squeezes Darren’s hand and together they start the long walk back to their respective cars. Darren follows Chris back to his house, and they spend the rest of the night at the kitchen counter and on the couch drinking herbal tea and not being able to sleep.

                Chris goes to work the next morning exhausted, fueling himself with caffeinated sodas continuously throughout the day, and Googling local therapists so he can give Darren a list to work off of.

                He cancels the dinner plans he had with friends for that night, and heads back home right when he gets out of work, relieved when he finds out that Darren’s car is still parked in the parking lot outside of his apartment building.

                When he walks in Darren is sitting on his couch petting Chris’ cat while a random TV show plays quietly in the background.  He’s wearing Chris’ sweatpants and an old hoodie he must have pulled out of the back of one of Chris’ drawers, because he hasn’t seen it in years.

                “Hey,” Darren says, looking up at Chris and giving a small smile.

                “Hi,” Chris says, walking towards Darren. He plops onto the couch beside him and leans into Darren’s space, laying his head on Darren’s shoulder and petting the cat that’s still on Darren’s lap.

It hits Chris then and there that maybe he and Darren can make this work in the long run. At least, he’s willing to try harder.

                He thinks Darren finally is, too.

**Author's Note:**

> I'd love to hear your feedback! So please leave a comment.
> 
> Also, if you like it, you can reblog it on [Tumblr](http://magsforya.tumblr.com/post/160564068919/try-harder).


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